


Almost Home

by Brit Hux-Tico (birchwoods01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Difficult Decisions, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29860362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birchwoods01/pseuds/Brit%20Hux-Tico
Summary: The war is over and Rose Tico is at a loss. Her friends have all moved on to better and brighter things, and she could, too, but she struggles to find her place in the new world. What she really wants, what she misses, is having a loved one waiting for her.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Almost Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very short little oneshot. I've been wrestling with writers block for the better part of three months, now, and this is the first thing I've been able to write that I'm actually proud of. If you're reading this, I appreciate your kindness and I hope that you take some delight in this little story. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

Empty.

That’s what she felt, empty. 

Standing on the surface of Naboo in the shade of a dreamless garden, dressed in her shabby fatigues and holding her fresh dismissal orders at her side, watching shuttle after shuttle park itself down and carry off engineers, mechanics, metal-workers, steel divers, grunts and gravers to their new lives, or old ones, left Rose Tico feeling empty. 

_“Would you like to go back to Pasaana with the refugees?”_

_Rose shrugged. “Is there any work there?”_

_“None requiring a mechanic. Perhaps another planet?”_

_“Hays.” The word was ash in her mouth. “Hays Minor?”_

The look of sympathy the Twylekian desk worker had given her still raked uncomfortably down Rose’s spine. It had been hard to smile past the swollen knot in her throat and the aching burn in the corners of her eyes. She’d dodged the massive teem of former Resistance bodies and ended up here on the edge of the world, on the outside looking in; watching them all reunite. 

If Paige were here, where would they go? Certainly back to their home, back to Hays, at least to say goodbye before-...

A young woman in civvies screamed, drawing Rose and all others attention in mild post-traumatic response. As the woman broke into a run, the crowds quickly parted, and all watched as she launched herself into the air, latching on to a pilot who caught her. Both almost immediately dissolved into tears, and the pilot spun his girl while holding her tightly tucked into his chest. 

Rose’s jaw ground, bitter envy tasting of acid in the back of her throat. 

Images unbidden of Paige, sweaty and smiling in the morning sun, cheeks bright golden pink with the exertion it had taken for her to muscle their rickety and near broken transport down in the over-crowded evac bay, came to mind. She glittered in the sun, healthy and warm and alive, brimming over with love: a possibility. 

But Rose was alone, standing in the shadow of a cedar tree, twenty thousand credits in her pocket and all the souvenirs of war hanging dead weight from the pack over her shoulder. She tried to find that girl inside, the one who was spunky and spirited enough to march forward and slip onto a ship, any ship leaving this planet of no future, but Rose was feeling rather small. 

Where was she to go, when the entirety of the galaxy, the universe, had no one in it waiting for her, longing for her safe return, eager to hold her and feed her and love her now that the war was won?

A gentle breeze of wind blew a strand of hair out from behind her ear and into Rose’s face. As she moved to push it back with the whole of her hand in frustration, her gaze slipped past the hordes of huggers and sappy sympathizers, drawn to the brightest spot between the two groves of trees, far across the rendezvous point for refugee reintegration. The fire-red hair was like the tip of a matchstick on the slim, black-clad body, yet rippled loose, like waving leaves of autumn, sprigs of violent ginger color splashed across his ivory forehead in reaching grasp toward bright, glittering seafoam green eyes. 

Dread, or something like it, bloomed with explosive force in her belly, swelled to a crescendo of heat that caused her legs to move, her feet to shuffle backwards and her eyes to dart swiftly sideways, chin canting downward, to play immediately as if she had not seen him. 

“Kriffing hell,” she swore under her breath, and the urge to jump ship came near immediately, the uncertain gravity of being alone in a foreign place far more palatable than being accosted one more moment by -

Rose dared another glance, peeked with one nonchalant toss of her head and slanting eye.

He was gone.

Who knew loneliness could be less painful than disappointment?

Of course he would move on, just as the others had, find his new place in this new world. He’d been redeemed by his action as the spy, snake that he was, crawling on his belly to switch sides just in the nick of time. Rose heard that he’d been asked to serve on the new intergalactic senate. And of course he would. Former General Armitage Hux would make an exceptional politician. 

The thought made her lip curl in disgust. 

“Rose.” 

Hope unfurled, pleasant and smoky swift in her chest, even as she winced and squared her shoulders, resigned. 

“Hux,” she snapped, without turning to look at him. 

Did he have to say her name like that? All breathless and agitated and achy, like he could not decide if he’d rather murder or marry her. 

Tiny spiders of electric doubt skittered up and down her spine. He moved closer in her periphery, shadow and flame, and angled himself near to her shoulder, leaning, ever so slightly, in to speak in the low, fluttering velvet voice she’d only heard him use once before. 

An eternity stretched between his breath and his words; Rose hung in the balance, tongue to her teeth, frozen and waiting.

“Do you require transportation?”

The magic melted into thin air and Rose’s face snapped in his direction, a cynical brow raised high on her forehead. Their eyes locked and her body went into auto-pilot defense, shifting her out of the danger radius of nearness, weight on one hip in haughty defiance. 

“Nope. I’m uh-.”

She struggled to come up with a lie, her tongue feeling heavy as lead. 

“I’m headed to Pasaana.” Yep, that’ll work. “With the refugees.”

Hux remained cool, a deep, dark pool of water with a surface as smooth as glass. The only ripple was the barest hint of a curve in the corner of his mouth. 

“I do believe that vessel left port close to an hour ago.”

Damn. 

The failed attempt at disimulating her plans must have shown on her face, for the curve in his lip became much more pronounced. His hair danced on his forehead in the gentle breeze. Rose narrowed in on it as a weak spot, to tease him, knowing that the regulation of attire was as important to him as breathing. 

Her instinct was to poke, prod, and tease, but as these temptations played out in the scampering directionless focus of her mind, his expression changed. Those eyes, hard and arrogant as a knife the first time that they’d meant, softened, just a little. The hard edge of his jaw retreated. Even the monolith shadow he cast over her in his height blurred at the edges, and in the hesitation it brought her, he stepped closer, raising one gloved hand toward her chin. 

Rose did not shift. She did not breathe. 

Gently, he clasped her chin with thumb and forefinger, gently, gently, he stroked, ever so softly, the line of her jaw. 

Rose swayed in the trance of his gaze, a pillar of heat and panicked jubilation blazing in her heart. 

“Allow me to escort you,” Hux started, the words tender and elegant on his full mouth. “It is the least I can do.”

Her emotions cycled: from the fearsome wrath she’d felt upon learning that he, Hux, was the spy, to the aching sorrow at hearing about his death, then the buoyant relief at learning otherwise, and the furious outrage at having him return to her. And then, of all things, the melting miasma of molten magic when he’d cornered her, disarmed her, and confessed his love for her. 

This last one lingered, hissing and spitting hot fire in her belly like so many sparks from a failed energy booster. 

The truth tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. 

“But I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Then go with me.”

It was the least elegant phrase he had ever spoken, and spoken so quietly, Rose wondered if she’d misheard him. But then he was staring at her mouth with the gaping expression of a broken man, opened perfectly, just for her, like the ruined pages of a book begging for another chapter, a new leaf, a turn of page. 

Rose’s heart could not stand beneath all the weight of love that pooled in the smoke green of his eyes. 

She kissed him, up on her tiptoes, hungry and hopeful. Hux hissed a sigh of relief into her mouth and lifted her up, one arm finding her waist and crushing her into his torso as he pulled her right into the iron grip of his control. 

He held her so tight that it hurt, and Rose moaned a sad sound of delight, her palms scrambling to touch him wherever, to hold his face, to trace his cheekbones with the pads of her fingers. They kissed so long they could not breathe, breaking apart for a gasp, a shift in angle, and diving in again. 

His hand clasped the back of her neck, arm dipped into the small of her back, curving her belly into his, murmuring “Rose, Rose” over and over between little nips of his plush lips and delicate swipes of his tongue. It was enough to pierce her heart, slicing it up into tiny little pieces and threading them back together again. 

It was moments before Rose realized she was shaking, before the dampness on her cheeks registered as tears, before the lover’s sighs of the man who held her became wilted sounds of concern. 

“I’m okay-,” she asserted, even as she buried her face in his shoulder, words muffled by the fabric of his uniform. “I’m okay.”

His broad palm and spider-leg fingers spanned the back of her head, making her feel small, but his smell was familiar, and the pressure of his touch was a balm on the ache she’d been shoving aside all day. 

Slowly, Rose raised her face, tipping her chin against his sternum and giving Hux a little smile. 

“Let’s go- wherever we’re going!”

Hux answered with a little smile of his own, the wild fear in his eyes disappearing so quickly it might not have been there at all. The epitome of composure, he reached down and slipped the strap of her bag off of her shoulder and effortlessly hiked it up on to his own, then strode forward, in slighter steps so she could follow at her comfort. 

“We’re going to the only planet left standing that’s capable of hosting a governmental system.”

 _Because Starkiller destroyed Hosnian Prime_ hung in the air, unsaid, between them. 

Rose followed behind him in quiet thought as Hux led her down a path away from the crowds, through a set of overgrown bushes toward the private hangars. 

“Are you sure the new government wants to let you into Empress Teta? I mean,” Rose paused, quickly erasing the edge of ice in her tone. “They aren’t worried you’ll blow this one up, too?”

A raw snicker left his chest and though Rose couldn’t see it, she was sure he’d snarled. 

“Cheeky of you,” he murmured, pausing in place and turning back toward her. “I’m sure they will take comfort in knowing I would never destroy a planet upon which my beloved is currently housed.”

Rose was not prepared for the swooning curl of heat in her belly at his words, or the blaze in her cheeks as he reached out his hand, taking hers by force, and turning with a snarky roll of his eyes, to guide her up the hill. 

“Mhm.” Rose conceded. “Valid point.” 


End file.
